The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: It assess students attitude, knowledge, and behavior related to tobacco use and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, as well as youth exposure to prevention programs, and media messages.

Methods: Our sampling frame consists of all schools containing grades 7, 8 9, and 10. With grades 7, 8, 9 being intermediate. A two- stage cluster sample design was used to produce a representative sample of students in grade 7 through 10.

Results: Overall response rate: Schools-100% (50 of 50 sampled schools participated) Students-95.19% (2158 of the 2269 sampled students completed usable questionnaire). Overall response rate-100%*85.66%=95.19%. About 3 in ten (28.4%) of all students have ever smoked cigarettes, with ever smoking significantly higher for males than females. More than 4 in ten (45.4%) of all students had been taught in school during the past year about the dangers of smoking, and 37.3% of them had discussed in school during the past year . Over six in ten students who currently smoke cigarettes stated that they want to stop smoking during the past year but failed (62.8%). Exposure of second hand smoke was high for all students (current and never smokers); both at home or in public places. Around 2 in ten (19.3%) of never smoker and 36.1% of current smoker think that boys who smoke have more friends. Around 7 in ten students (69.4%) saw an anti- smoking media message in the past 30 days. Only 13.4% of current smokers usually smoke at home and more than half (52.4%) purchase their cigarettes in stores.